Psychic Phenomenon
by Ringtailer720
Summary: The new and improved rewrite of the old Psychic Phenomenon, complete with brand new plot. Things start going downhill fast, and it will be up to Ash and his friends to save the day...


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon, Rocky, The Birds, or anything else referenced in the following passages.

This is the rewrite for Psychic Phenomenon; I recently looked over the original and found it...not so good. So I planned out a whole new direction to take it and will post the new chapters when they are ready. I do have college work and real-life things that need to be put in order and will come first, so I would like to ask for patience during the process. I would love it if anyone who reads this to critique it. The site uploaded it funny and I lost all of my capital letters so I might have missed a few.

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Psychic powers. Even after thousands of years, the phenomenon was still not entirely understood by scientists. The origins of these capabilities rested somewhere in the brain structure, though no testing machines were able to confirm this due to psychic interference.

Psychics had often been revered in ancient cultures as demigods or prophets, their abilities truly a blessing from the deities themselves. They were the oracles, predicting dangers that threatened the civilization. They were the priests and priestesses, capable of expelling the ghosts from most areas. Philosophers of the ancients referred to them as the logic in the universe.

Then a new culture, a more superstitious one, emerged. Merely hundreds of years ago, millions of psychics where hunted as witches. Neither were the psychic creatures in the pokemon species safe; they too were feared and abhorred as demons and troublemakers.

Modern laws within the last century helped to remove restrictions on psychics and psychic pokemon; though only certain groups of people had continued their reverent hatred of them past the days of the witch hunts. With restrictions dealing with games of chance and certain pokemon matches, psychics were assimilated into the current society and some even succeeded in securing places of status.

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**Part I:**

* * *

**Chapter Title:** **Alea Iacta Est (The Die is Cast)**

* * *

**[Saffron City; March 18; 2:53pm]**

A little kid walked down the street, licking the ice cream cone in her hands eagerly; with the late afternoon heat it didn't take long for a vanilla soft serve to melt. Behind her skipping form a poochyena panted and pranced about her heels. The little dark-type had already gotten quite a few licks from the little girl, and he knew that, as always, he'd be the one to lick off the remainder on her face.

The small girl paused to look up at the building she was passing. Her mommy always told her that the woman inside who trained pokemon used to be mean and dangerous, but the little girl could only remember the woman as a very nice person who greeted her warmly when she went out on lunch break.

She continued to skip down the road with her pokemon following right behind, unaware of the fact that the gym seemed to be radiating a lot less psychic energy compared to normal.

The poochyena nearly ran right into the girl when she'd suddenly frozen in her tracks; he whimpered loudly as if to ask her what was wrong, but she'd only let the cone slip from her fingers before she advanced down a nearby alleyway. The puppy pokemon looked at the ice cream briefly before deciding that the girl's safety was more important at the moment.

She seemed somewhat robotic as she walked methodically between garbage cans and old crates. It seemed like forever before she stopped at the back door of a shop; the door swung open and the poochyena growled at the shadowy figure that stepped out towards the two of them. The pokemon, small as he was, could see through the figure's legs and saw a pair of glowing eyes coming from the infinite blackness of the interior.

The dark type felt the unmistakable feeling that all pokemon of his type experienced when they initially encountered a psychic type: aversion and something akin to hatred.

But it wasn't a psychic move that halted his lunge towards his charge's kidnapper...

* * *

**[Lavender Town: Radio Tower; 7:00pm]**

"Good evening, Kanto! I hope that everyone had a wonderful spring day today!"

The voice that chirped cheerfully over the radio belonged to a teenager with fiery red hair; it was pulled back into a stylized braid that extended just below her shoulders. Misty didn't even look over the notes she had written up earlier; she spoke confidently and the words seemed to flow from her mouth.

"With a high in the fifties, It'd be foolish to let such a beautiful spring day go to waste." Her fellow DJ, shiny black hair cut prim and proper to match her more stoic attitude, spoke up with a little less energy. Misty barely batted an eyelash when sabrina spoke now; she'd adjusted to the idea of working side by side with her fellow gym leader after a few weeks and no serious issues arising.

The water-type gym leader had been hesitant about the radio show with the psychic; she'd had first-hand experience with sabrina's psychic skills before and wasn't too keen on replaying that over again. To begin with, it had been her sisters to agree to take the job that president goodshow had suggested. He thought it could add to the draw of the pokemon league, though there were already entire television channels devoted to pokemon matches. Once the three sensational sisters had heard about who the other DJ was, however, they'd barely managed to make it out the door without ripping an arm off.

But the five years since the whole dolly incident had proven beneficial for the older woman. She was cheerful, to an extent, and she wasn't quite so intimidating anymore.

"Haunt haunt haunt haunt!"

The brief pause had invited none other than Haunter, one of the three ghost pokemon that used to haunt the old pokemon tower. When the tower was bought and converted into the present-day radio tower, the haunter and the other three ghost pokemon had not been deterred one bit. They now made frequent and periodic visits on any and all of the radio stations; they'd become honorary DJs overnight.

"It seems the day couldn't end quickly enough for this guy," Misty chuckled, and was rewarded by a good lick to the face. The other DJ was quick to remedy this with a sprits or two of paralyze heal, a required staple of everyone who worked in the building.

Sabrina scanned the list of people who'd emailed and instant messaged their song requests to i103.6, the station devoted entirely to playing any and all song requests of the listeners, as well as a good mix of whatever the DJs happened to enjoy. She spotted an email that looked promising, and smiled while opening it.

"I've got a request from Boulder-B-Breeder from Pewter City requesting the latest from the pop princess herself."

Misty rolled her eyes; that song really suited brock to a t, and it was almost laughable at how Brock himself had requested it. "You know, that song would fit my friend perfectly."

"The guy isn't a womanizer; she's just a ho."

"Sabrina!"

Sabrina cocked an eyebrow behind the square-framed reading glasses, acting innocent at her comment. "Haven't you seen the music video for that song? She's got her boobies all over him."

"Haunt haunt haunt haunt haunt!" Haunter agreed, laughing his--well, he'd be laughing his butt off if he had one. Sabrina gestured with a pale hand to the ghost, though only the three occupants of the room could see it.

"See, even haunter agrees with me." Sighing, Misty shook her head and rolled her eyes. Sure, Sabrina had a sense of humor. A dry sort of humor, but a humor nonetheless.

"Why don't we play boulder-boy his song already?"

* * *

**[Saffron City: March 25; 7:13am]**

The voice on the news was drowned out by the sounds of hurried instructions given via videophone just a few feet away. The harried-looking woman ran a hand through silky black hair, struggling to regain her rapidly dwindling composure.

"Are you sure that you're okay, teacher?" the woman on the other side looked concerned at the state her leader was in.

"Yes, yes, I'm perfectly fine!" the woman responded in a voice that truly wasn't 'fine'. "I'm more concerned about the safety of the others...as well as those who haven't vanished yet."

Sabrina's student looked at her through the screen. "Well, if it will help with your peace of mind, I'll tell all of the others who are still with us not to venture into the city--or to get out of the city--without further ado. That way, you only have to worry about one set of problems at a time."

"Very well." Sabrina responded, "I'll keep in touch. Please stay safe, for the love of any and all deities out there!"

The connection closed and Sabrina sat back against her chair, putting her reading glasses back on and resuming her scanning of the writing before her. She could smell breakfast cooking in the next room, thanks to her boyfriend who refused to "let her starve herself to death," as he put it.

Her peace of mind had long since packed its bags and taken an extended trip to hell. First her grandmother, her beloved and idolized grandmother, vanished without so much as a hint left behind, and now her students were being picked off one by one. She loved her students as much as she loved her pokemon, and she loved them as much as a mother loved her children.

To have anything happen to any of them broke her heart.

A pair of arms snaked around her waist, and she tilted her head back so her boyfriend could place a kiss on her forehead. "Though I love how cute you look in those, it's time for breakfast and not work."

She smiled wistfully at him, her eyes filled with so much emotion. "I don't know why you'd keep me as a girlfriend...I'm such a pain."

Sabrina felt the long strands of his hair brush against her back as he hugged her. "I've been with you through your whole tenure as gym leader, and I will be with you through this whole thing."

As he guided her from her seat to the kitchen, she couldn't stop the cold feeling that began to spread throughout her being at his words. he didn't even know the half of it yet.

* * *

**[Pallet Town: 7:30am]**

Mrs. Ketchum was humming loudly as she smeared rich and creamy white frosting on the cake before her. The TV on the kitchen counter was tuned on a news channel that broadcast a story of children and pokemon turning up missing in the second biggest city in Kanto, but the mother was busy thinking about the surprise party she was throwing for her son.

Mr. Mime should have been almost done with the guest rooms by now, and Delia was almost certain that the psychic pokemon had slipped outside to take care of the garden for her.

Returning back to the task at hand, the brunette mother grabbed the frosting bag and began trimming the edges and base of the cake with navy blue frosting. Her hands were steady and she moved with the speed of an expert; her old job as a cake decorator came in handy at times like this.

After she'd switched tips and skillfully wrote out the birthday message next to a picture of a pikachu, her mind was left unburdened of the concentration needed.

Delia stood back to admire her work before she covered it carefully and slipped it into the emptied refrigerator. She would have to go see if Mimie could erect a barrier around the fridge so her son couldn't spoil the surprise. She knew that in a few days time, his friends would be arriving for the party. Professor Oak would be unable to attend at that time so the three of them would be having a small dinner party tonight.

That made her think a fresh salad with tomatoes would be nice to have. She rinsed off the frosting from her hands and walked over to the door in order to tell mimie to gather some lettuce and tomatoes while he was out there. What Mrs. Ketchum saw instead reminded her a bit of the movie 'The Birds' that she'd seen as a teenager.

Mimie was looking up at the nearby tree, where a large group of murkrow had landed. She stepped out into the lawn and noticed that their eyes seemed to follow her every move; it unnerved her as she tried to ignore them while she got the psychic pokemon to help gather the vegetables. Then she and mimie reentered the house, making sure that the doors and windows were secure.

The shaken woman went over to her videophone, intending to call up Professor Oak and see if he could arrive a lot sooner for the party than scheduled. She wanted to talk about why a flock of bird pokemon had perched themselves beside her home.

* * *

**[Pallet Town; 7:45am]**

The day was sunny, warm, and the bird pokemon filled the air with their songs. The best part about it was that, despite being a sunny, warm, and song-filled day in the middle of summer, there wasn't a single tourist's car to be seen for miles. That was because the path that weaved all across the oak pokemon preserve was off-limits to tourists and was very un-drivable anyway.

All of it--the sun, the warmth, the singing bird pokemon, and the lack of tourists--went completely unnoticed by one Ash Ketchum as he went about his morning jog with Pikachu close on his heels.

One could say with full honesty that Ash was not the brightest light bulb in the socket, or the sharpest tool in the shed, and they'd be right. One could say that he was so unobservant that he'd miss a neon sign pointing out a million dollars...and they'd be right. None of these light bulbs or tools or neon signs factored into the equation this morning, however. Ash ketchum was oblivious this morning due to a completely different reason.

As he jogged up the hill towards the smiling and friendly warm sunlight, he hummed along to the song playing on his portable music player; a personal favorite that fit his current training mood. To be more precise, he kind of grunted along to the theme from 'Rocky' that was blaring into his ears at the moment.

"Dun. Dun dun dun. Dun dun dun. Dun dun du-n. Dun. Dun dun dun. Dun dun dun. Dun dun du-n. "

Pikachu ran along not to far from his trainer, thinking to himself what a horrible movie 'Rocky' had been in his humble opinion. He hated eighties music for this reason.

Ash continued his rounds, Pikachu continued to resist the urge to shock the music player into oblivion along with his trainer, and the tourists continued to be blessedly absent. He reached home just as his mother was put a heaping plateful of pancakes at his spot on the table.

"Did you wash your hands?" When she'd received his nod of confirmation her sweet smile returned to her face and she added a glass of milk to his place setting. "So how was your exercise this morning?"

"It went perfect!" Ash got out before he'd taken a large bite of his pancakes. Halfway through breakfast Mrs. Ketchum left the room to get the mail, and she returned a short while later with a strange brown package and scroll addressed to none other than...

"Ash, this package arrived from you, but there's no return address..." His mother mused while placing the package in front of him, and then returned to looking at the magazine she'd received.

"'K" the boy muttered, continuing to eat his food while attending to the package.

The topic of the strange cluster of bird pokemon failed to pop up, much to Mrs. Ketchum's liking.

**[To Be Continued]**

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Words: 2,552  
Pages: 6


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